Memory Corner April 4th 2019

Friday April 4th, 1794

MATRIMONIAL DISPATCH – a few days ago a love-sick couple drove through Carlisle to Gretna Green, returned the same evening, and early the next morning the bride was delivered of a fine boy.

A GENTLEMAN, who has lately made a tour through Worcestershire and neighbouring counties, says that the fruit trees, and vegetation of every kind, are in a wonderful state of forwardness from the present mildness of the season. The oldest inhabitants scarcely ever remember so much blossom at so early a period of the year. The grain likewise bears a very promising appearance.

 

Friday April 2nd, 1819

COMMITTED TO OUR COUNTY GAOL – Jos. Powell for stealing a quantity of grass and clover, the property of Mr Hide of Stanton; Mary Hassall, charged with uttering a forged £1 Bank of England note to Mr John Jones of Madeley, knowing it to be forged; Jos. Payne and Wm. Preece, charged with stealing 3 hempen shirts and a quantity of bread and cheese.

PARLIAMENT – several petitions from surrounding towns have been presented against the leather tax, the Insolvent Debtors’ Act, and the coal tax, and in favour of Dr Phillamore’s motion for a repeal of the salt duty.

 

Friday April 2nd, 1869

An 1869 velocipede

A CORRESPONDENT of The Times states that not more than three or four pairs of ospreys breed annually in the United Kingdom.

ACCORDING TO the Chester Chronicle, a man drove a velocipede from Oswestry to the shore of the Mersey, a distance of 50 miles, the other day in six hours.

THE EARLY POTATO CROP in the west of Cornwall and Scilly has been considerably injured by the recent severe frost.  In some places the ground is being ploughed up and re-tilled.

THE CRYSTAL PALACE was thronged with sightseers on Good Friday, and it is stated that no fewer than twelve thousand persons paid their entrance shillings to see those unhappy specimens of misshapen humanity, the Siamese Twins.

 

Friday April 4th, 1919

Bottle of Lockyer’s sulphur hair restorer

THE PEACE CONFERENCE is about to take steps to destroy Prussian militarism for ever.  The German armies will be reduced to a minimum, and we have reason to hope that German military aviation will cease to exist. This military suppression, however, is a mere moral satisfaction for the Allies, for behind lurks more threatening than ever the danger of an aerial attack, if the Germans are allowed to possess a fleet of commercial aeroplanes.

DON’T LOOK OLD – keep the ravages of time at bay by darkening the grey streaks with LOCKYER’S SULPHUR HAIR RESTORER, which deepens to a natural colour in a few days. Lockyer’s maintains a youthful appearance.

 

Friday April 6th, 1979

MORE THAN 3,000 PEOPLE signed a petition in Shrewsbury on Saturday calling for the early construction of the M54 motorway.  The 3,300 signatures were collected in the town centre by members of the M54 Motorway Support Group.  The campaign group claims the M54 between Telford and the M6 is vital to the prosperity of the whole of Shropshire.  Mr Roger Edwards, an executive committee representative, said they were encouraged by the local response.  “The petition will be used to help the group argue the urgent need for the motorway at a public inquiry in June,” he explained.

 

Thursday April 7th, 1994

ROY FIELD, Shropshire’s chief librarian and a well-known local magician, has disappeared from the Shirehall.  He has taken early retirement to concentrate on other interests, including magic and publishing.  A member of the Magic Circle, he came to Shropshire in 1977 as deputy county librarian and became chief in 1988.  Roy has been involved in a number of major projects, including the renovation of the Castle Gates library, developing the mobile and trailer libraries and helping to set up the successful publishing venture Shropshire Books.  “I hope eventually to return to my native Yorkshire where I shall perform magic professionally, as well as developing publishing and other interests,” he said.  “I have really enjoyed my time in Shropshire, but now feel ready to do other things.”

 

Thursday April 9th, 2009

IT WAS a week of celebrations for a town couple who marked their diamond wedding anniversary alongside a marriage, 21stbirthday and a birth.  Elsie and Ron Hosie of Whitchurch Road shared their 60thwedding anniversary with their daughter Sandra, who married at Shrewsbury Castle just two days before her parents reached their special milestone on March 23rd.  Meanwhile, Mr and Mrs Hosie became great-grandparents, with a string of celebrations rounded off when their grandson celebrated his 21stbirthday on March 27th.  Elsie, 79, said it had been a fun-packed month.  She said, “It was very exciting.  My husband and I were both in the RAF and we met while in the air force at St Athans in South Wales in 1948.  We were engaged in five weeks and married in five months.”